An Artist's Dilemma
by Ms. Baka
Summary: When Mikan finds herself enrolled into the best art academy in the world, she continues to pursue her dream as an artist. But of course dreams never go smoothly. "Some people's princes come riding on a white horse. Mine came riding on a car that nearly killed me."


**Hello peoples of this world! Yes I know, another story? But I just had this really good idea in mind, and I couldn't wait to type it up! Hope you don't mind! :)**

**Disclaimer: Yeah... No. When pigs fly. And I mean real, alive pigs. Not robots that Hotaru made that just happen to have attachable wings. So please don't get any blackmailing ideas Hotaru.**

* * *

**Some people's princes come riding on a **

**white horse. **

**Mine came riding on a car **

**that almost killed me.**

* * *

_Today was the day. _

_The day when she finally could show her beautiful art to the whole world. _

_She still couldn't believe that her mother had let her enter the contest last month. _

_The contest which prize was a full scholarship to Gakuen Alice, the world's most famous and expensive art school._

_Two days later.._

_She couldn't believe it. She had won. She eagerly waved to the audience who were cheering wildly, chanting her name over and over again with excitement._

_"Sakura Mikan! Sakura Mikan! Sakura Mikan! Sakura Mikan!"_

_She thought that her heart would explode from how much happiness she held in it. _

* * *

_A man in a dark black suit bowed to her, and her heart swelled at the idea of people bowing to her. The man then handed her a microphone. She thanked him, took it from his hands, took a deep breath opened her mouth and..._ rolled onto a hard wooden floor.

"Ouch, my back hurts. What in the world was that dream for? I woke up at the best part!"

Right after that slightly stupid comment was made, Hotaru's infamous Baka gun was taken out.

_Baka! Baka! Baka!_

_**(Professor Hotaru:** Invention #5. The Baka gun is a giant bazooka that has invisible bullets the size of large cats. It is portable, able to fold into something that looks like a small pack of gum. But eating it will make you explode very painfully. I advise you not to do it. Please note that the Hotaru Company is not responsible for injury to you or others. The speed of the bullet when launched is 250 mph, and the damage inflicted upon target with a direct hit in the face is 2,300. The Baka gun is named after its purpose; shooting idiots, and it is also named after the sound the gun makes when it goes off. But mostly for shooting idiots. Limited edition. Only 4,500 yen, available in black, blue, and green.**)**_

Mikan was thrown backwards into the wall, which cracked under the force.

The guests next door heard a crack from the other side of the wall, but since the crack wasn't that deep on the other side, they couldn't see anything wrong with it.

They shrugged it off.

Somehow, despite the minor damage to the wall, Mikan was not harmed at all.

Well, not as much as she should have been.

It was strange, these type of human beings are almost always never heavily harmed when attacked by their best friend.

It's an odd world after all... *Sings to the tune of 'It's a Small World'*

Mikan rubbed her eyes and and her back, which was sore from the sudden attack and her rolling from her bed on to the hard wooden floor.

"Where am I? Who am I? How old am I?" Mikan softly blabbed to herself. She knocked herself lightly on the head three times with her fist.

"Oh yeah! I remember now! I'm Sakura Mikan! Age 14! And I'm in a hotel room!"

"Dummy, you're paying for the damage done to the wall. And look at the time."

She turned her head towards the direction of the annoyed voice, and found out that it belonged to her 'best friend' Hotaru.

"Hotaru!" Mikan spread her arms and ran towards her friend, clearly wanting a hug.

That was a mistake.

_Baka! Baka! Baka!_

Her back really was unlucky today.

She was going to have to go to the hospital soon if this kept up.

"Dummy, I told you to look at the time, not hug me." There came Hotaru's biting voice.

"Hmph." Mikan pouted and crossed her arms across her chest.

But since she was a good girl, she obeyed her best friend's orders and looked at the clock which was dangling in the corner of the room.

She twisted and turned her neck to look at it, squinting at it from the corner of her eyes.

It was 7:00 in the morning.

"So?" Mikan asked her best friend, turning her neck awkwardly towards her.

She didn't understand why Hotaru had expected her to be surprised. On the contrary, she was very frustrated.

She had woken up at he best part of an amazing dream, had been hit in the face two times already with Hotaru's Baka gun, her back felt like it had been killed three times, and it was only freaking 7:00 in the morning.

Hotaru mentally face palmed.

Had she really forgotten about this important day? They had been up almost the whole entire night last night, discussing it until Mikan had started feeling sleepy.

Which was around 2:00 am.

That explained the black circles underneath her eyes when she had woken up.

Maybe Mikan had just finally gone crazy, like Hotaru estimated she would. But her guess was that her friend would still be in the sane zone for another 50 or years or so. Had her guess been wrong?

"Dummy, look at the date."

Mikan, knowing better then to disobey her best friend's command again, looked under the clock where the calendar hung.

It was the 7th of August.

"So?" Mikan asked again, a bit of curiosity and confusion creeping into her suspicious voice.

Then right when Hotaru was going to whip out her Baka gun again and knock some sense into her friend's head the hard way, something clicked.

Oh my freaking god.

It was the 7th of August.

How could have she forgotten?

Hotaru and her had been up almost the whole night talking about it. (Yes, Mikan. Until 2:00 am in the morning! You made poor Hotaru have black rings under her eyes when she woke up!)

Today was the day when they finally got to submit their drawings into the art competition.

She couldn't believe that her mom had allowed her to enter the contest, which required lots of money.

Mikan had sighed sadly and was ready to accept her fate, but then Hotaru had pestered Mikan's mom about how things were not going to be the same without that, and I quote,'that annoying Mikan' around in the same school as her.

Mostly because then she would lose her dummy for her target practice, and she didn't want to go through the trouble of finding another one.

That was when her mom had finally have given in in letting her enter the art competition.

Hotaru, on the other hand, had just told her mom that she was entering, and then used her own money to enter the compitition.

Typical of her. She was filthy rich. Hotaru was specialized in making machines and robots, such as the Baka gun.

She sold them at very high prices, but since they were perfectly crafted machines and robots, people usually had to fight to get their own product from the Hotaru Company, as Hotaru liked to call it.

She even gave out her autographs at a booth for 20 yen each, and a picture with her and her emotionless face was for 50 yen. People fought to get those too.

So basically, while Mikan's family was struggling just to pay the bill for the house each year, Hotaru had people fighting to get her autographs And to have a picture with her.

It was really strange that they, who were completely different, were best friends.

But just when Mikan was smiling happily, thinking about all of her nice, or more like not so nice moments with Hotaru, another horrible thought suddenly struck her.

It was 7:00 am.

The competition started at 8:00 am, and ended at 10:30 am.

It was a forty minute drive from her house to the building where the competition would be taking place.

Without traffic.

Oh my freaking god.

She freaked out.

She practically sprinted to the bathroom like she was in the Olympics, and began brushing her teeth furiously like there was a bomb in the bathroom, and it was set at 5 seconds.

Hotaru chucked softly, amazed at her friend's sudden mood change, while Mikan searched frantically for her favorite shirt, the one with the cute white laced shirt and a polka-dotted dress.

Hotaru of course, being the person she was, had woken up at 6:00 got ready in 5 minutes, and was ready to go.

Hotaru was the kind of person who could spend 5 minutes packing for a week long trip.

Mikan was the kind who spent a whole day.

Yet she did't wake up Mikan because she wanted to see what Mikan would do and her face expression when she woke up and found out that it was already this late.

Such a great friend isn't she? This Hotaru Imai.

Hotaru thought that if Mikan woke up and immediately began to get ready, she might have been able to spare a few minutes to actually talk to her.

But luck wasn't on Mikan's side.

Mikan had just woken up a few minutes ago, and she had spent a few of those minutes acting like she was stupid.

Which she probably was.

After Mikan finished finding the outfit that she was going to wear today and put on, she began to pull at the knots in her hair with a purple hairbrush.

Hotaru saw this as a chance, and so she took out her portable black mini camera from her pocket, and snapped a couple of pictures of Mikan making a strange face while trying to tug on a very stubborn knot.

Why Hotaru took this embarrassing picture? Probably for blackmailing purposes.

Blackmailing other people for money was Hotaru's hobby.

After the last stubborn knot on Mikan's head had given in to the brush, she gave her whole head a couple more brushes just to make sure there were no fly-away knots, straightened her shirt and skirt, picked up her drawing that she was entering in the competition, then headed out the door, with Hotaru trailing right behind her.

They were about to go out into the parking lot before she remembered something.

"Hey Dummy." Hotaru called.

Mikan turned around, annoyed, and said "What?"

"You still have to pay for the damage done to the walls."

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

Five minutes later, after a bunch of yelling and scolding, other people besides those who also knew that today was the day of the art competition might have thought that the purple eyed girl and the brunette who furiously walked out of the hotel were malfunctioning robots.

Everything they did was in short, stiff, jagged movements.

They even talked like that to the taxi driver.

In a less complicated way, they were nervous.

But not the 'only- a- little - bit- nervous' kind.

Not at all.

More like the 'really- really- really- really- dying- nervous' kind.

Mikan was jumping a lot, and if you had sharp eyes, you could see that when she looked to be standing still, she wasn't. She was always quivering a little, and sometimes her eyes would begin to twitch a bit.

Hotaru, even though she didn't look it, was just as nervous. But she wasn't the kind of person to be that obvious on the outside. She normally talked a bit like a robot, so the only person who could see her nervousness was Mikan.

And how did Mikan know that Hotaru was nervous?

Simple.

That day when they walked past strangers in the street, Hotaru had not even stopped once to take a picture for her blackmailing business.

Normally, she would always take at least half a dozen on the way to the supermarket or wherever they were heading, and half a dozen on the way back.

Which made a total of 12 or more pictures each week.

But now, when they walked to the road, Hotaru hadn't even tried to take a picture of anything.

It was so out of character for Hotaru, it was almost creepy.

After Mikan had stiffly given the money to the slightly curious taxi driver, she checked her sky blue watch, which her mother had given her for her 13th birthday last year.

It was 7:50.

The good thing is that there wasn't any traffic, so the ride was faster then Hotaru had calculated it to be.

Hotaru was still slightly fuming about that in her mind.

Mikan and Hotaru looked up at the tall glass building that the art competition was going to take place in.

It was a fine looking building, with nearly 30 floors stacked up on top of each other. Each individual window shone from the sunlight (or maybe windex), and the main doors were nicely decorated and polished.

They were the really fun spinning kind that made you really dizzy and were quite hard to get out of.

Mikan ran towards it, dragging the glaring Hotaru by the hand, which got her another hit by the Baka gun, this time into the thorny rose bushes surrounding the building.

Nevertheless, after she had clawed her way out of the thorny bush, Mikan still ran towards the door, spinning around in it twice before she finally dashed out of it, slightly out of breath from the pushing and running.

Hotaru, who was right behind her, quickly stepped out before she missed her chance and said, "Dummy, don't get worked up before the real test. Somebody like you has to save their energy, or else you might fall asleep in the middle of the competition."

"Meanie!" Mikan stuck her tongue out at Hotaru.

Hotaru only stared back with the same poker face expression that she had before.

Mikan pouted, then headed for the stairs. The competition was going to take place on the 3rd and 4th floors.

Hotaru followed her.

Soon after, they arrived at the 3rd floor, huffing and panting. The steps were harder to climb then they realized. Mikan wished that they, like most smart people, had taken the elevator instead.

But then she wondered why next to the elevator there was a sign that said, 'Caution. Do not use elevator in case of fire.'

Didn't that mean that nobody should ever use the elevator? Couldn't a fire happen anytime in the building?

That sign confused her, and yet she almost always saw it next to a elevator, which was why she almost never used them.

On the 3rd floor, there were rows and rows of seats with various numbers and letters on them, and almost all of the seats were already filled with hundreds of people.

Just when Mikan was scanning the crowd to find Hotaru's her seat, Hotaru dragged her to two empty seats in the right back corner of the room, which numbers and letters were 23G7 and 9S3G.

Mikan checked their tickets.

23G7 for her and 9S3G for Hotaru.

"Hotaru! You're a genius!" Mikan said, then ran towards Hotaru with her arms spread wide.

Hotaru sighed. Baka Mikan would never learn her lesson, would she?

Well, she had warned her before what would happen. Well, she had demonstrated it.

Same thing.

She had two seconds to decide what to do.

She considered for half a second to use the Baka gun, but since that would be a major disturbance to the people around her, she decided not to.

After all, she was pretty sure that none of these people in the room were idiots if they wanted to enter the art competition.

Or maybe they were.

After all, they were all staring with admiration at the girl who looked like she was going to embrace her best friend in a gigantic bear hug.

Well, sorry to be a disappointment to the eager audience, but that was not going to happen.

Mind your own business people. Cause things will not always happen like how you want them to happen.

Hotaru quickly pulled out something that looked like a deer hoof from her left coat pocket, and smacked Mikan's cheek with it just as she was about to wrap her arms around her.

_**(Professor Hotaru:** Invention #3/#4. The Deer hoof comes in a packet with the Horse hoof. They are smacking devices that you out on your speed each one is supposed to move and is required to move at is 155 mph. Damage inflicted upon target with a direct hit is 1,455. Please note that the Hotaru Company is not responsible for the harm done to you or others. Horse hoof and Deer hoof are named after the shape of the weapons. Only 1,205 yen, available in black and brown.**)**_

All the onlookers' eyes widened in shock as they saw the violet eyed girl smack the brunette across the face.

She soared through the air and into the wall.

She quickly got up and rubbed her cheek.

"Ouch, Hotaru. That hurt my face!" Mikan exclaimed giggling.

She had been quite used to getting hit by Hotaru with her inventions now.

After all, she had been her best friend since she was only 5 years old.

When all the onlookers continued to gape at these pair of 'friends', Hotaru sent them a threatening ESP message and a glare that made all of them feel uncomfortable.

_Stop staring. Or else... *cue the evil eye glint and smile*_

The audience all shuttered and looked away, and when random people near the outside of the building felt an evil force coming from it, they quickly moved to the other side of the street.

Just to be safe.

Hotaru was racking her brains for a blackmailing idea that cold be for all of the people on the 3rd floor, when suddenly the loudspeaker that hung on the wall over the door blared out:

"All contestants, please note that the competition will be starting in 1 minute. We would appreciate it if you could check your forms and make sure that you have your piece of art with you. Thank you.

And after that, there was only silence and a few nervous voices.

Mikan re-checked her forms. She quickly skimmed them, and finding that everything was in place, she let out a sigh of relief.

Hotaru did nothing except scratch her nose.

After a few moments of awkward silence, the loudspeaker blared out again.

"We will now begin the competition. Contestants 24H5 and 7HJ9, please come to the 4th floor. We wish everybody good luck!"

Mikan spotted a young couple heading to the stairs. _Aw, wouldn't it be cute if they got in together? They would both be in the same art school as each other!_

Mikan fidgeted in her chair, with her hands folded on her lap. Hotaru entertained herself by playing on a game device she had invented. Mikan had asked if she could play it, and she got a horse hoof to the face.

She rubbed her cheek. Ouch. It still stung from the hit.

She began dozing off, waking up only when her head hit the back of her chair, until she heard the loudspeaker blare out, "Contestants 23G7 and 9S3G, please go to the 4th floor. We wish you best of luck."

When Hotaru heard this, she abruptly put her game away, and got up from her seat, dragging Mikan behind her.

Mikan broke free of her grip, and went back to get Hotaru's and her drawings.

She quickly picked them up, then with one in each hand, she carefully made her way over to Hotaru, trying to not harm the drawings in anyway.

"Come on dummy."

Hotaru said it like this announcement was no big deal. Mikan was freaking out on the inside. And the outside.

"Hotaru! I'm so nervous! What if we don't pass? What if they take one look at our drawings and laugh, saying that we would never be able to become an artist? What if-"

Hotaru smacked her with the horse hoof, which shut her up.

But nobody knew that Hotaru's face expression was a pack of lies. The only person who knew the truth was Hotaru.

If you had been able to get a close up look of Hotaru's face, and stared at it for long enough, you would have been able to see that she was a tiny bit afraid.

Which she never was.

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**I hope you enjoyed this chapter! I have big plans for this book I'll tell you, big plans! *Tries to laugh like a business man but fails* I'll try my hardest to update my other stories too! See ya next chapter! **


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